Beef Lasagne Recipe

Ingredients

450g (1lb) lean minced beef
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 chopped onions
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 carrot (chopped finely)
400g (14oz) can tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato puree
300ml (1/2 pint) beef stock
12 sheets oven ready egg lasagne
50g (2oz) grated Parmesan cheese

Cheese Sauce
75g (3oz) butter
75g (3oz) plain flour
800ml (1 1/2 pints) fresh milk
50g (2oz) grated Cheddar cheese

 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Grease a 3 litre (5 pint) ovenproof dish.

2. Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan and fry the onions, garlic and carrot for 5 minutes. Add beef mince and fry for around 4 minutes until the mince is brown.

3. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato puree and stock. Season with a little salt and pepper. Simmer for around 30 minutes.

4. In a saucepan melt the butter, then add the flour and stir for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and gradually add the milk. Place back on the heat and bring to the boil, stirring until the sauce has thickened. Season and add the grated Cheddar cheese.

5. Put 4 lasagne sheets in the dish, cover with half of the meat sauce then a third of the cheese sauce. Repeat layers, finishing with lasagne, cheese sauce and Parmesan. Bake for 45 minutes until nice and golden.

Lasagna

Lasagne (UK and Italy) or Lasagna (USA) (English pronunciation: /ləˈzænjə/ or /ləˈzɑːnjə/, Italian pronunciation: [laˈzaɲːe]) is a wide and flat type of pasta and possibly one of the oldest shapes. The word also refers to a dish (lasagne) made with this type of pasta. As with most other types of pasta, the word is generally used in its plural form lasagne meaning more than one piece of lasagna ribbon . Traditionally, the dough was prepared in Southern Italy with semolina and water and in the northern regions, where semolina was not available, with flour and eggs. Nowadays in Italy, since the only type of wheat allowed for pasta is durum wheat, lasagne are made of semolina (from durum wheat) and eggs. There is a green version which is coloured with spinach.

Baked lasagne (lasagne al forno)

Origin

There are three theories on the origin of lasagna, two of which denote an ancient Greek dish. The main theory is that lasagna comes from Greek λάγανον (laganon), a flat sheet of pasta dough cut into strips. The word λαγάνα (lagana) is still used in Greek to mean a flat thin type of unleavened bread.

Uncooked lasagne on a bed of bechamel and ragu

The other theory is that the word lasagna comes from the Greek λάσανα (lasana) or λάσανον (lasanon) meaning "trivet or stand for a pot", "chamber pot". The Romans borrowed the word as "lasanum", meaning "cooking pot" in Latin. The Italians used the word to refer to the dish in which lasagne is made. Later the name of the food took on the name of the serving dish.

A third theory proposed that the dish is a development of the 14th century English recipe "Loseyn" as described in The Forme of Cury, a cook book in use during the reign of Richard II. This has similarities to modern lasagne in both its recipe, which features a layering of ingredients between pasta sheets, and its name. However, an important difference is the lack of tomatoes, which did not arrive in Europe until after Columbus reached America in 1492. The earliest discussion of the tomato in European literature appeared in an herbal written in 1544 by Pietro Andrea Mattioli while the earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was published in Naples in 1692, though the author had apparently obtained these recipes from Spanish sources.